Summers In Laurel Canyon by Spencer J. Vigil, Brand New, Paperback

Description: Brand new, sealed, soft cover Summers In Laurel Canyon by Spencer J. Vigil, “Everybody’s got a story,” was something my mother told her four children religiously. Often sarcastic, like Oprah handing out prizes, “You get a story, you get a story, you all get a story!” I guess I just never really believed her until she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer when I was seventeen. Not having a lot of money, and my mother wanting to be with her kids, she stayed at home with us until her sudden passing ten months after her diagnoses, me being one of her primary caretakers. She was still working on her Masters of Education until the cancer began spreading. As a high school senior, I had to make incredibly hard decisions often leaving class early to sit in radiation waiting rooms driving so slowly to get there because every bump hurt, that was the truth. When she passed, I had only applied to a handful of colleges, still sitting in my grief and I wondered if my family would stay intact once I left.I remember when I left for Seattle that same September, hugging my dad goodbye, I remember how alone I felt. Throughout my time here I often romanticized my life in Southern California with my new friends in Seattle. Although the adventures I would tell were true, I often felt like I was falling short at fitting in. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. Eventually I was able to move out of dorm life and into a house with wonderful people I truly cared about. I would go home to California every summer and feel even more out of place than I did in Seattle. I would get breakfast with old friends at Caroline’s Café in Redlands and feel like every insecurity showed, but when I’d drive through Los Angeles and I’d visit my grandparents, sitting in Carney’s having a burger with my family, I felt like I was home and like I fit so perfectly.It wasn’t until my third year at university that I got hurt, with no health insurance, I was prescribed an unhealthy number of opioid painkillers with no primary care to monitor me. It turned quickly into an addiction, until I overdosed and wound up with over ten thousand dollars in hospital bills and a hematoma on my leg the size of a golf ball. I could no longer afford to pay rent and so I thought of my options which didn’t include dropping out of school. So, the following week, with the help of my brother, I put all my stuff into a storage unit and began living out of my moldy 2006 Jeep Liberty. Sometimes parking in the covered lot outside of work. I remember getting to school so early to brush my teeth and use the shower on my brother’s dorm floor.When the snowstorms that winter came, my friend and co-worker offered to let me stay with him until I was able to save enough money to rent a room. I was still living out of a suitcase on an air mattress, so very thankful to have someplace until the storms cleared. It was then I had time to process. Where I silently came out to myself that I was Transgender. Watching the taping of RENT: Live over and over until Sam, understandingly, banned it. I would go to goodwill and began buying boys clothes. My appearance drastically changed and so did my name. I was calling family members, scared to death, hoping they’d support me. They did for the most part. I found myself dreaming about California again. Listening to The Jonathan Larson Project Album as the snow rolled down.Now graduated, living in a home, and three years clean. I look back on those times with a lot of gratitude and heartache. I sat with the things I wrote during those times of great change and hardship. Knowing that I wouldn’t have possibly made it out of the situation without that help from friends and loved ones. Not everyone has such a happy ending like that. These pieces of work are an accumulation of my life from 2018 to now. If anyone is out there, wondering if you’ll make it. You can.

Price: 16 USD

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

End Time: 2024-12-18T01:21:16.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.5 USD